Here’s a link to the Toronto Sun’s interview with Roland Emmerich. It’s a good interview. One quibble: The movie (and the Shakespeare authorship issue generally) is not really about taking on “Shakespeare.” It’s about seeking the truth about the author. This quest is not anti-Shakespeare in any sense. In fact it’s very much “pro-Shakespeare.” At least that’s how I see it. In any event, here’s some of the interview and the link. Interesting that Emmerich cites Amadeus. Matthew

“One of my favourite historical dramas is Amadeus. But when you analyze Amadeus, not much of it is true as it is depicted in the film “¦ That’s why we chose Richard III in Anonymous. The historical Richard III was not a hunchback. Shakespeare made him a hunchback for dramatic reasons.
“That’s how I see this. There’s always an inner truth and there is the storytelling part in which you try and work in as many real facts as you can.”
So, if Shakespeare, as Emmerich paints pretty convincingly, was a fake, one wonders how much longer it will be before this is accepted as a matter of convention.
“I think Stratfordians will have a hard time in the coming decades,” he said. “Don’t forget, the people saying that this is nothing more than a conspiracy all have something to lose. They are all history professors living in Stratford.
“But I’m always very simple. I say, ‘Show me a letter by William Shakespeare that he wrote during his life.’ There’s not one measly letter. That, for me, is the most amazing thing of all. A writer, a man of the word, and not even a note to his wife saying, ‘How’s it going honey? I’m doing fine in Southwark.’
“Even something like that, I’d say, ‘Fine, I’ll stop. You’ve won.’ Until that happens, I’m sure I can stand up to anybody in the literary establishment.”